Russia foils alleged plot on Winter Olympics

Russian security agencies say they have foiled a plot by Islamic militants to attack the 2014 Winter Olympics in the Black Sea resort of Sochi.

The National Anti-Terrorism Committee (NAC) said the special services had confiscated arms, ammunition and explosives - including surface-to-air missiles and a flamethrower - in the breakaway Abkhazia region of Georgia.

"Russia's FSB (security service) was able to establish that the fighters planned to move the weapons to Sochi from 2012 to 2014 and use them to carry out terrorist acts before and during the Olympic Games," the NAC said in a statement.

Any security breach around the games could be embarrassing for president Vladimir Putin, who has taken a personal interest in the event and hopes it can be used to boost Russia's image.

The International Olympic Committee has said it is confident Russia will provide a safe event.

Abkhazia, which Russia recognised as an independent nation after a five-day 2008 war with its South Caucasus neighbour, is adjacent to Sochi on the Black Sea coast.

NAC said the seized cache included Igla and Strela portable surface-to-air missiles, two anti-tank guided missiles and 36 mortar bombs as well as a flame thrower, grenade launchers, explosive devices, and anti-tank and anti-personnel mines.

The NAC blamed the plot on the Caucasus Emirate, a leading group in an insurgency against Russian rule in the volatile North Caucasus, where Russian troops have fought two wars in Chechnya since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.

It suggested the group's leader, Doku Umarov, had been cooperating with Georgian special services but did not give any details to support this allegation.

Insurgents want to create an Islamic state and claimed responsibility for the suicide bombing at Moscow's Domodedovo airport in January last year which killed 37 people and twin bombings that killed 40 people on Moscow's metro in 2010.

One group, the Muslim Circassians, driven from their homes by Russian soldiers in the mid-19th century, say the Winter Olympics are being held on a "mass grave".

It's a fundamental human yearning to be a part of something bigger than one's self, and maybe that's what drove my mate Ash to die, far from home, in a bloody foreign war against Islamic State, writes C August Elliott.